CREATING AN
EXCLUSIVE
SOUND

So, what are the ingredients in creating a good sonic brand?

The number one ingredient is exclusivity.

I can say with confidence that there is no one thing more important than exclusivity. You can have the most perfect sound, melody, tone, song, etc. but as soon as someone else uses it, it’s no longer YOUR brand. Necessary disclaimer here: I am the creative director for a company that creates custom music and a large part of our business is sonic branding. I have a dog in this fight but it doesn’t change the facts. Let’s go back to Netflix for a moment because it seems like everyday there’s a new streaming platform that we need to subscribe to.

Netflix is arguably the 800 pound gorilla in that space. Say, for the sake of argument, a smaller streaming platform that was in the market before Netflix came around had a similarly cool mnemonic that accompanied their logo. Then here comes Netflix with their billions of subscribers and they say “hmmm, that’s a cool sound, let’s just use that with our logo”. Do you think it will matter that our other guy was using it first? The answer is no. As soon as Netflix started using it they diluted any connection that may have been associated with the other service.